SHIMLA: Following the landslide on Sunday, which killed nine tourists at Batseri link road along the Sangla-Chhitkul road, Kinnaur deputy commissioner has ordered closure of the road till the Public Works Department gives the all clear for its re-opening. The administration has also invited a team of geologists from Chandigarh to conduct a survey of the area and to suggest ways of stabilising the hill from where boulders fell on to the road and bridge.
At around 1pm on Sunday afternoon, rocks started shooting down the hill opposite Batseri village. The main bridge collapsed under the impact of the falling boulders and nine persons were killed when the boulders fell on a temp traveller returning to Sangla from Chhitkul.
Deputy commissioner, Kinnaur, Abid Hussain Sadiq told TOI that the bodies were sent by road to Delhi after postmortem. They were to be taken by families and relatives of the deceased at Himachal Bhawan through the resident commissioner. The victims have been identified as Pratiksha Sunil Patil (27) from Sadhbhawna Nagar, Nagpur, Maharashtra; Deepa Sharma (34) from Jaipur; driver of the vehicle Umrab Singh (42) of Tagore Garden, West Delhi; Kumar Ulhas Ved Pathak (37); Anurag Biyani (31) from Sikar in Rajasthan, his mother Maya Devi Biyani (55) and his sister Richa Biyani (25) besides Satish Katakbar (34) from Chhatisgarh. Amogh Bapat (27) from Korba Darri, Chhatisgarh, one of the deceased, was Lieutenant in the Indian Navy, so his body was handed over to the local Army unit at Karchham and was airlifted to Chhatisgarh, Sadiq said.
He added that the administration had initially requested a helicopter to airlift the bodies but due to bad weather, it was decided to send the bodies by road.
At present, he said, residents of Batseri are commuting through a footbridge located some 500 metres from the site where the main bridge collapsed on Sunday. He said the new Bailey bridge from Shimla has been requisitioned and would be installed in the next 20 days and that rubble of the previous bridge would be cleared in around seven to 10 days. Another seven to 10 days would be needed to install the new bridge, he said.
